It had been a pretty decent day. Things were nice and quiet at the base, there had been no criminal activity for the last week, and it was the off season. Mallory had as much free time as she wanted this afternoon and she was going to enjoy it by wandering around the mall and then catching a movie later.

Her good mood was shattered when she saw it. Mallory stopped and stared at the life size, cardboard standee of herself outside the Shoe Zone. She remembered doing the photo shoot; but, she had never okayed which photos they were allowed to use. They had to have picked the absolute worst one possible.

The cutout had her standing sideways, one hand on her hip and an athletic shoe in the other hand while she smiled vacantly. At that angle, her bill looked horribly misshapen. The cutout was a little smaller than she really was, despite being supposedly life sized. They had removed all traces of her muscles in favor of making her into one of the stick-thin, skeletal models California loved.

That... That had to go. No way.

A mother and her young son walked past and he excitedly stood by the standee, smiling while she took his photo. Immediately after, three teenage boys exited the store, laughing as two posed by the standee while the third took their photo. One of the boys grabbed the cardboard breast while the other pretended to slap its rear end.

"Dude, she's so hot," one joked.

"I know! I'd totally sleep with that alien."

"You'd sleep with anything."

"Yeah, but," he moved behind the standee and made thrusting motions with his hips, "She's probably never been with a real man." He laughed loudly while his friend gave him a high five.

Mallory cleared her throat and took a step closer to them, arms crossed and a death stare directed at the one saying he'd sleep with her.

"What was that?" she growled.

"Oh, shit..." Kyle's eyes grew wide and the other two grew silent at seeing the real life hockey player in front of them.

"That's no way to talk about a lady," Duke's voice came from behind her as he appeared from nowhere. "Now, if I were you," he pointed at them, "I'd leave before someone decides to help her teach you boys some manners."

"Uh, yeah," Jason nodded. "No problem. Sorry. We didn't mean any disrespect."

"Bullshit," Mallory said.

"Bye!" the third one said as they all turned and ran to the food court.

The two ducks stood in silence for several moments, watching them retreat.

Mallory glared at the standee once more, not really sure how she felt. How could some stupid human kids make her feel cheap like that?

"They shouldn't have done that," Duke said quietly.

"It doesn't matter," she said, shaking her head. "What time does the movie start again?"

He looked at her, weighing if it was worth talking about or if he should just let her drop the topic.

"Half hour," he said. "That's not a good photo of you anyway."

"I wish I could burn it." She turned and headed towards the theater, making sure to keep a respectable distance between them as they walked side by side. Boys humping effigies of her was bad enough; she didn't need more tabloid talk of her cheating on Nosedive with Duke or having a secret fling with the team's center.

"Hm. Not a bad idea." He kept the same distance, not moving to close it.

Anaconda had been the worst movie that they had seen in a long time and they both loved it. The movie had been good enough to take their minds off the stupidity in he mall earlier. That was, until they walked past Shoe Zone again on their way out. The mall was closing and an employee was moving the standee and shoes that had been displayed with it into the store before pulling down the gate.

"Hey!" Duke called out, jogging to the store as the young woman jumped up to grab the gate and pull it down.

"Oh! Wow! Hi!" She stopped with the gate halfway down. "You're Mighty Ducks!"

"Hi." Mallory glared at the paper version of herself.

"Yeah. Uh, is there any chance we could have that?" Duke asked, pointing to the standee.

"I really wish I could." She sighed. "We'd have to order another through corporate and this thing is super popular. We've almost sold out of the Ice Runner's this week. My manager wouldn't let me."

"Okay. Thanks." He turned to go.

"Wait!"

"Yeah?" Duke and Mallory turned around again.

"Can I have an autograph?"

"Would it get us that thing?" Mallory asked.

"I don't want to lose my job," she said.

"It's okay." Duke pulled a pen from his pocket and looked at her expectantly.

"Oh! Uh…" She felt around in her pockets and pulled out a receipt.

Duke signed it and handed it to Mallory. She shook her head, refusing at first, but Duke pushed the pen and paper at her again and she scribbled a quick mess of a signature.

"Have a good evening," Duke said as he and Mallory left.

"I hate that thing," Mallory said again. "How many of them do you think there are in the city?"

"How many Shoe Zones are there?"

"I don't even want to think about it…"

"Hey, Mal!" Nosedive called out at seeing his teammate in the kitchen.

"What?" She finished putting her sandwich together.

"Want to take lunch to Tanya?"

"Is she working on something and not eating again?"

"No."

"Then she can get her own food." She added chips to the plate and moved to sit at the table.

"Come on," he pleaded. "Please?"

"You make it." She took a bite of her sandwich.

"She likes your food better?"

Mallory paused in her chewing and frowned at him. She finished chewing and swallowed before answering.

"What are you up to?"

"Nothing! Just, make Tanya lunch and take it to her."

"Wait a minute…" She mentally ran over the schedule for the day. "It's Wednesday. She should be at that island with Huggerman."

"Ugh. Fiiiine." He sat down across from her. "Just go to the lab, okay?"

"Why?" She continued eating her meal.

"Because?" He tried a charming smile.

"Don't feel like it." She munched on a chip.

"But—"

She put another chip in her mouth and crunched it loudly.

He waited for her to finish.

"So—"

She ate another chip, looking him in the eye and daring him to interrupt over the noisy food.

"Are you—"

Another one.

"Fine!" He stood, throwing his arms up in the air. "Just go to the lab. Duke's got something he wants you to see."

She stopped eating and frowned at him. Puzzling through what Duke could want to show her, decided it wasn't that important if he was sending Nosedive instead of telling her himself, and picked up her sandwich for another bite.

"You're really not going?"

"Maybe later." She took a drink of water.

"Your loss." He stood up and left. Just before the door closed, he stuck his head back in and said, "Guess we'll just set everything on fire without you."

Fire? That sounded fun… She quickly ate the last bite of sandwich and put the plate in the dishwasher before hurrying to the lab.

When Mallory entered Tanya's lab, she found herself surrounded by dozens of the hideous standees from Shoe Zone.

"What?" She half shouted. "Why?!"

Duke chuckled and walked over to her, a flame thrower in his hands.

"You said you wanted to burn it."

"But, how? I didn't think you could get these?"

"Not too hard to run off with them when a star hockey player's distracting the clerks," Duke said.

Nosedive stood next to one, grinning.

"That's a really bad photo, Mal."

Duke held the flame thrower out to her.

She grinned and took it. They moved one of the standees into the flameproof containment unit in the lab and she eagerly squeezed the trigger, sending flames shooting out to burn the cardboard to ash.

They spent the rest of the afternoon setting up the standees in different formations, burning them all.

Tanya hummed to herself as she entered her lab. She had some more dermatic dressings growing in petri dishes and wanted to check on them.

The distinct odor of chemical accelerant and ash filled the air. Someone had been in there…

"They'd better not have messed with the spectrometer," she muttered, walking around the lab and looking for disturbed things. What she found was an inch thick pile of ash in the containment unit and three sets of bootprints surrounding it.

She considered finding whoever did it and forcing them to clean up the mess. Instead, she decided to add an extra serving of refined capsaicin extract to dinner next week.